This chart shows the cities with the fastest actual growth. For instance Scottsdate AZ, Phoenix AZ, Gilbert AZ, Mesa AZ, Chandler AZ, Tucson AZ, and Glendale AZ make up a fair amount of the list.

People are leaving California, Washington and other states moving to Arizona per U-Haul's transit tracking. There are obvious reasons such as affordability, taxes, landlord tenant laws, high paying jobs, and over all political environment. When they sell an expensive property, they have money left over to bid up properties in Arizona and live in much larger and nicer houses in better neighborhoods.
Anybody who already has properties in Arizona has done quite nicely. Anybody trying to break into the Arizona market needs to be well capitalized and have contacts.

The question is "does it still make sense to invest in Arizona"?, Well, that depends. The investors I know that use the common approach of putting 20% down and using new loans from a bank are choosing to invest in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia and other less expensives states.

However, folks from CA find using creative finance to invest in AZ are making big bucks. Why? There are still a lot of low interest loans that can be taken over and the equity has already been built in. But, it takes work, being well capitalized (this is NOT a 'no money down" territory) and it takes knowledge of the local market. When you go deep sea fishing for the big fish, you hire a guide so you don't ruin your trip. Same with creative finance.

Keep in mind that just because properties have increased so fast. it doesn't make all markets out of reach to all investors. Detroit for example, has increased a lot but is still affordable to most investors. But proximity plays a role to. It is much easier for a Socal investor to get to the Phoenix area than to get to the Detroit area. So, choose wisely.

Take a look at the list and keep in mind that increases are based on what they used to be priced at (growth) not at relative cost to each other. And also, Creative Financing works in all markets when done wisely and legally and the investor is well capitalized.

Big U.S. Cities Where Median Home Prices Doubled the Fastest

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